


look how long this love can hold its breath

by cassanabaratheon



Series: I exist in two places, here and where you are [3]
Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Nostalgia, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26276377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassanabaratheon/pseuds/cassanabaratheon
Summary: The final items were a stack of letters, ten altogether, tied with a dark blue ribbon. She touched them gingerly and hesitated in undoing the bow. The edges had yellowed and were worn from having been opened and closed hundreds of times, the creases truly set in. She didn’t know what these letters contained, nor who the author was, but the sentiment of how much they must have meant to her mother was not missed on her.
Relationships: Tronte Nielsen/Claudia Tiedemann, background Regina/Aleksander
Series: I exist in two places, here and where you are [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893649
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	look how long this love can hold its breath

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to do something about the fact Regina had known about Claudia and Tronte (1x06) and so this is just one version I played around with (I have another I'm musing over lol). All of these fics are set within the same verse but it's not exactly necessary to read them in order although sometimes I do allude to things/dates.
> 
> title by Sierra DeMulder

May 1989

There was a decoratively carved wooden chest, shoe-box sized, of her mother’s that she had not yet fully opened. She had peaked inside when she first discovered it, the day she and Aleksander were clearing out the house. It had been too hard then, as seeing a framed black-and-white photograph of her mother smiling with her baby-self at the very top had caused stinging tears to gather in her eyes and her breath to catch painfully in her throat. But now over a year had passed and she faced (just about) the reality that her mother was not coming back.

Cross-legged on the floor in the small but comfortable living room of her home, the one she shared with Aleksander, she placed the box in front of her. The little dog Gretchen, (the same name as the dog her mother had had as a child), padded over and sat by her side, wagging her tail. She stroked the dog’s head for a moment before she took in a deep breath, steeling herself, and opened the lid. There were a few photographs inside; the one of her as a baby, her mother with her grandfather dated 1956, another of her mother in her mid-twenties looking away from the camera whilst standing in front of a building she presumed was somewhere in Munich, a picture two girls either side of her mother that she recognised as Jana Nielsen and Ines Kahnwald during their teens, a portrait shot of her mother in 1975, and finally there was one of a smiling boy and on the back written in her mother’s cursive hand; ‘T.N, 19th June 1960’. There was the impression of blurred fingerprints on the image, as if her mother had traced over that face several times... She quickly slotted the photographs together, setting them on the carpet.

There were a few other items inside; a letter of acceptance to study Physics at the university in Munich, several drawings Regina had done as a child (she had to pause to rub hard at her eyes which filled with tears as she thought of how her mother had treasured them after all), and, folded inside a soft, green cloth was a slightly tarnished silver necklace with a small heart pendant that once her mother had said belonged to her own mother. Regina had found it on her mother’s dresser when she was younger, noting she had never seen her wear it. It had been the last gift Doris had given to Claudia before she died and she had said she would give it to her at some point. That time never came and Regina wrapped it up and moved it aside.

The final items were a stack of letters, ten altogether, tied with a dark blue ribbon. She touched them gingerly and hesitated in undoing the bow. The edges had yellowed and were worn from having been opened and closed hundreds of times, the creases truly set in. She didn’t know what these letters contained, nor who the author was, but the sentiment of how much they must have meant to her mother was not missed on her. They were private and would ultimately reveal to Regina a side of her she did not know, a woman who was more than just _her mother_. She felt like a trespasser on some sacred ground as she tugged open the ribbon but her mother was gone and all she had were pieces of her.

The first was dated 14th August (her mother’s birthday), 1969 and Regina mentally registered where this fell in the timeline she had of her mother’s life. She had been back in Winden for around a year, working at the plant as a junior assistant in one of the research labs. It was not a long letter with the first few lines being birthday wishes and general pleasantries. But then it turned to a soft hopefulness; that they could meet again. He – she saw the signature and had gasped in surprise – admitted to thinking about her often over the years and now she was back, he found himself looking out for her, even just a glimpse in the distance. They needed to speak, just them, and he proposed a time and place where he’d wait for her.

She closed the letter, gulping hard and stared at the others with fascination and trepidation for what she might find enclosed within them.

She thought of him, a man she considered an acquaintance but to her mother, someone far closer than she could have imagined. She remembered the way he asked her in the car, if Claudia had mentioned him, the hesitancy there, the sudden thickness of the air because now she knew why. She had had a niggling feeling then and all this merely confirmed her suspicions. 

She opened the next three which were more in the way of notes – a time, a place, coupled with sentences of longing. She blushed at the yearning which was so palpable her heart thundered in her chest. The woman described was her mother, unrecognisable to her in the role of a lover, an entirely different creature who was loved, _adored_ , and seemed to have loved back.

Unbidden, she suddenly recalled an event she had not thought as significant until now. She had been younger and it had been a little past dawn, the weak, grey wintery light only just seeping into the apartment (they hadn’t moved to the house yet) when she had woken. She thought she heard movement, her mother being up and walking around, and she crept out of her room as quietly as she could. Peaking around the corner of the wall, she rubbed her eyes sleepily and peered at end of the living room where the front door was. Her mother had her back to her, dressed in her long sapphire-blue satin robe, feet bare and hair loose in sleep-tangled waves down her back. She was talking to someone in a hushed voice so she couldn’t hear them but it was a man, Regina knew that much, when she heard the second voice murmur something. She couldn’t see them but she could make out her mother raise her hand, presumably to touch whoever it was. There was a soft sigh and then her mother stepped back which sent Regina scuttling to her room before she was caught. She had been confused, wondering who her mother could have possibly been speaking to so early in the morning. She eventually went back to sleep and come later that morning, seeing her mother all neatly put-together, laying out breakfast for them, she thought maybe she had imagined it.

Of course, it had to have been him. And she wondered now if there were other moments that she had just not seen – naturally, given that no one was supposed to know. She wracked her brain thinking if she had ever really seen them together in public? Her mother didn’t really socialize much with the other kid’s parents, often too busy and not really fitting in in the same way. She questioned if Jana Nielsen had woken up that morning to find her husband missing from their bed and worried at his absence - or was she used to it?

She bit down on her lip, not wanting to pursue those thoughts.

She absently started to read the next letter (it wasn’t long like the others) when she stilled and sat up straighter, pulse quickening. Her eyes darted to the date – 5th September 1971 – and the tone here had shifted. It’s not a love letter but a quiet plea. He wrote that he understood her silence regarding the child – _her_ – and would keep his distance but that, should she have any need, she could come to him. Similar words to the ones he had spoken to her.

The letter dropped from her hand and she drew her legs up to her chest, pressing her forehead to her knees. She wished for the millionth time that her mother was here and she sobbed loudly into the silence. Gretchen pressed herself against her thigh and she gathered the dog into her arms, taking comfort from the little creature. When her tears subsided, she sniffed hard, wiping her face with the backs of her hands. She sighed, and keeping Gretchen close, continue to the next.

Distance, it seemed, was in the form of five years – at least in accordance with date that followed. They were sporadic, the next four, covering six years collectively and she wondered if there had been others in between which her mother had not kept. These had a new tone to them, something deeper, a level of understanding formed between long-standing lovers. The final letter, unknown to both the writer and recipient that it would be that, was dated a few months before Mads Nielsen went missing. Before a chain of events would start, cycles repeating, as time began a steady countdown without any of their knowledge.

_I wish for you, always._

Her breath faltered as she stared at that last line, hands trembling. Her heart clenched so tightly in her chest that she ached from it. How had her mother reacted to those words? Though she could be dismissive and cold, she knew her mother’s love for her, had felt its warm tenderness and clearly Tronte Nielsen had also received her affection (albeit a different kind). Perhaps her mother's heart had similarly twisted in her chest from the bittersweetness of it all.

She felt drained, wrung out, and she leaned back against the sofa leg, closing her eyes with Gretchen resting against her and that was how Aleksander had found her when he came in. As he sat down by her, taking in at length her red-rimmed eyes, the box and the letters on the floor, he took her hand gently and brushed back her hair from her face. Her smile was weak and he waited patiently as she told him of her discovery.

After a few moments of silence, he asked her what she wanted to do with them. She blinked, surprised at that, not having thought that through. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth as she gathered the letters, handling them as if they were made of glass as she slipped them into their envelopes and in order, tying them all back together.

“Do you want to give them to him?”

She glanced between the letters and him then shook her head. “No… No, not now. Maybe one day? But not now.”

They said no more about it and she put them back into the chest before it was stored away safely, remaining untouched for most of the years to come – but not forgotten.

* * *

September 2019

The bench in the churchyard was a little damp from the rain but they remained there despite it. It was quiet, peacefully so, with the rest of world seeming a thousand miles away. He watched as the older man’s hands shook as he took the letters, eyes wide with astonishment and then glassy as he tried to hold back the tears. He ran his finger over the ribbon, as if he was handling the most precious artefact and, in a way, he guessed he was. He shook his head slightly, mouth opening then closing, almost unable to comprehend their existence.

“Regina found them,” Aleksander began as a way of an explanation. “When we first cleared out the house. She,” he paused as Tronte was looking at him again intently. “She read them.”

He bowed his head, closing his eyes as his hands tightened around them, a pained expression on his face.

“She wants you to have them. They belong to you after all.”

He swallowed, nodding and then, opening his eyes, he very carefully placed them on his lap and covered them with his hands. “I thought she would have destroyed them.”

Aleksander understood who the _she_ in question was.

“They must’ve meant a lot to her.”

Tronte turned his face away, letting out a long exhale. “Perhaps.” He then glanced back to Aleksander and asked hesitantly, “Regina, is she… How is she?”

“It's... She's as well as she can be.” His voice sounded strained even to his ears and the other man didn't press further.

Silence passed between them for some minutes before he stood up slowly, brushing his hands down his coat and Tronte tilted his head towards him, thanking him softly. As he walked away, he glanced over his shoulder and he felt a wave of pity for him; to see him gazing at the letters again with such lovelorn-nostalgia for a life he once had, the woman who had been a central part of it and a love that had not truly extinguished in the face of so many years of absence. 

**Author's Note:**

> comments are much appreciated! and if anyone wants to talk about THEM find me on tumblr @ claudiatiedemann


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